


I Remember When You Were Here

by dollylux



Series: Fic Advent Calendar 2014: Brothers, Soulmates, and Other Such Sexiness [23]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Christmas Eve, Drunk Dialing, Drunkenness, Heartbreak, Loneliness, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:32:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2830046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Jared's first Christmas without him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Remember When You Were Here

**Author's Note:**

> Day twenty-two of my fic advent challenge. Prompt: disappointment.

After he runs out of beer, he switches to liquor.

There’s something sickening about the combination of Shiner Bock Christmas Cheer and white agave tequila that makes Jared wish he hadn’t had that last shot, but here he is.

Messy drunk and alone in his house on Christmas Eve.

It’s eerily quiet in the house, only the low hum of the central heat moving through the vents preventing a total silence that would probably be too much to bear. There’s no tree, no presents, and his phone’s on silent but in his hand.

He’s too drunk not to be stupid, too drunk not to try.

So he hits _call_.

He smashes the phone against his sweaty, scruffy cheek and closes his eyes, the whole world swaying when he does, like he’s floating in space, his stomach flipping nauseatingly. 

“Hello?”

Shit.

He freezes, eyes flying open, hazy and bloodshot as they stare wildly across the room. He doesn’t know what to do now. He hadn’t thought this far into it.

“Hello?” A thinner voice now, impatient. There’s conversation in the background, vague laughter and the sound of metal silverware on glass plates. Jared’s chest tightens.

“Jensen?”

Now it’s Jensen’s turn for stunned silence. Jared listens to it, to every breath, and waits. The background noise gets quiet, and there’s the soft click of a door closing. Jensen’s breath again.

“Why are you calling?” He can tell Jensen’s trying to sound curt, but it just comes out as a plea, almost whining. But it’s too serious for that, too heartbreaking. Jared would listen to it forever just to keep hearing Jensen’s voice.

“How are you?”

“Jared, is something wrong? Are you hurt? Do you need help?” Stronger voice this time, like Jensen’s found his emotional footing. Jared can feel the remaining seconds ticking by.

“No. No, wait,” he rushes, his heart racing when he can sense that Jensen is just going to hang up, “wait, just.” His breathing is harsh into the speaker, probably into Jensen’s ear, his eyes blurring with drunken tears. “Please. Please, Jen. Just talk to me for a minute. Please.”

Another long pause, this one without breathing, like Jensen’s pulled the phone away from his face. Jared rests his face against his hand and lets the tears seep into his own skin.

“Okay,” Jensen finally says, his voice low, careful. Conditional. “Very, very briefly. Talk.”

Jared just sits there dumbly, phone against his cheek, a panicked desperation traveling through him, his whole body trembling as he tries to come up with something, anything, that would keep Jensen on the phone.

“W-What, um,” he starts, his breath catching, voice soft, fragile, ready to shatter whenever Jensen wills it, “what are you doing? Are you with your family?”

“I am,” Jensen replies evenly, a sigh in his voice, like he’s settled into a chair and accepted that this is going to happen, however briefly. “Already had dinner. Just got through with presents. Levi got a bicycle, and he’s riding it around in the house and Mom is freaking out.”

Jared smiles, eyes closed to picture it completely, the big house made cozy and warm with Christmas lights and laughter.

“What are you wearing?”

Jensen laughs for that, a surprising sound that makes Jared almost feel faint, makes him grasp at the fading edges of that sound to keep with him, to save it for later when everything in his life is dark and quiet and alone again.

“Jared, seriously? You’re gonna do this now?”

“I’m just. I just want to make sure I picture it all right. That I’m picturing you right.”

Jensen’s sigh is soft, indulgent, like there’s a smile in it. Jared doesn’t hope for such a thing, just clutches at his phone and holds onto every passing second.

“It’s boring. Just a grey sweater and black jeans.”

“What kind of sweater? And what fit are the jeans?”

“Just a, um,” Jensen mumbles, like he’s looking down at himself, “kind of a dark grey cable-knit sweater. A turtleneck. And the jeans are just skinny jeans, I guess.”

Jared swallows, picturing him so vividly that it hurts.

“Wearing anything under the sweater?”

“Black tank.” Shy now, like he’s picturing Jared picturing him.

“I bet you look beautiful.”

“I look tired,” Jensen sighs. “Took the kids ice skating today in the Square. Had hot chocolate and drove around before dinner to look at all the lights in the neighborhood. Three kids under ten all day is no fucking joke.”

“You love it,” Jared smiles, turning then to lie down on his back on the couch, the room tilting and spinning again. “I know you want at least two.”

“Yeah, well.” Soft, sad, the fragile spell broken. “Not any time soon. What are you doing home anyway? Why aren’t you at your mom and dad’s?”

“Didn’t feel like it this year. Didn’t feel like anything this year.”

“Jared.” Another sigh, a sound Jared knows all too well by now. A sound he heard a lot in their last few months together. “It’s been almost a year. Do you realize that?”

“Ten months, two weeks, and nine days.”

Jensen falls quiet, more surprise on his end. He recovers quickly. 

“You can’t keep doing this, you know. You can’t just hold onto me forever. You’ve got to let go eventually.”

“Who says I have to?” It’s a hot rush of words followed by an overflow of tears on burning cheeks. His chin trembles, shaky hands pressing against his closed eyes. “Who says? Why should I? Why should I let go of the love of my life?”

“Because,” Jensen replies almost soothingly, like he’s coaxing a child out of a bad dream, “we broke up. I moved out. Got my own place, remember? Because it’s over.”

“It’s never over,” Jared whispers, his knuckles white where he grips the phone. “Not us. We aren’t built for that, Jensen. We’re forever. You know we are. You’re the one who told me first.”

“That was the eighth grade, Jared. We’d just seen _Romeo & Juliet_ in the theater. I can’t be held accountable for my actions.”

“Do you remember last Christmas?” Jared sniffles, a pathetic, wet sound, a childish sound. He lowers his hand and opens his eyes, staring at the dark ceiling. He still has Jensen’s clothes hanging in the closet, expired boxes of his favorite tea in the cabinet. Jensen’s toothbrush in the bathroom. Jensen is a ghost here. “Do you remember decorating the tree and getting Christmas cards in the mail for the two of us? Wrapping presents and you taking them from me to fix them because you said I use too much tape.”

“It only takes four small pieces of tape to wrap a gift if you do it right, Jared.”

“And learning how to make wassel and making breakfast together Christmas morning? Making apple crisp pancakes and opening our presents and how you let me have you on the couch? Just let me take you so slow that it took hours and you cried and told me you loved me, that you were mine? Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Jensen says softly.

“We’re forever, Jensen. You know we are. I know you feel it in your bones. You feel it in the middle of the night when you wake up and I’m not beside you. You feel it on days like today when you’re supposed to be with the people you love, with your family, and I’m not there.”

“Don’t do this, Jared.” Jensen finally sounds just as broken as Jared feels, a tremor in his voice, and it breaks Jared’s heart, makes him breathless with self-loathing. “Please don’t do this. Not tonight.”

“Why not tonight, Jen? Because you miss me, too? Because you don’t want to go home alone because you know you belong here. In your home. Just give me time to fix it. Give me a chance to fix it. I promise I see it now. I know how much I messed this up. How much I checked out those last few months.”

“You had a lot going on,” Jensen defends. “I know you did. I just… I always felt like I was the only one pulling for us. Like I was the only one who cared. And you can only do that for so long, Jared. I didn’t want to resent you. I never wanted us to hate each other.”

“Give me another chance. That’s all I’m asking. Jensen, my love. My beautiful boy. _Please._ Just a chance.” He’s crying now, hiccuping fast and panicked like a child, alcohol churning in his guts. He’s utterly without pride here, throwing it all down in front of Jensen, all these things that have been building up for months, held back and held inside, and they’re coming out now, destroying everything else, for better or worse.

“Jared, you’re drunk.” He’s practically whispering now, his voice tight, trembling. “I’ve just. I’ve gotta go. Please take care of yourself. Please.”

“Jensen, God, please--”

“Goodbye, Jared.”

The line goes dead, and Jared keeps the phone where it is, breath shuddering in his chest, unable to move, to change from what he was doing the last time he heard Jensen’s voice, can’t accept that it’s over. That it’s all over.

He jumps up suddenly, rushing blindly to the bathroom and throwing himself down in front of the toilet to vomit up everything he’s consumed in the last several hours, maybe even several years, and he’s sobbing by the end of it, deep, painful gasps that hurt his already aching stomach. 

He doesn’t know what to do. He simply does not know what to do, doesn’t know who or what he is without Jensen, without them being _them_. He doesn’t know how to begin to find out.

He pulls himself to his feet and stares at his reflection in the mirror, the gaunt, ghastly face staring back at him one of a stranger. He itches at his unkempt beard, blinks at himself through the unending stream of tears, and shoves his hair back from his eyes.

He rinses his mouth out and brushes his teeth twice before stumbling back into the livingroom, much more sober now and much more miserable for it.

 _Christmas Vacation_ is on again when he flips the TV on. He puts it on mute and sinks back onto the couch, looking around in the near-dark at the empty house, the one that had been so full of love and light this time last year. Jensen had done that, had been that for him. Had infused him with life, had given him his heart, had shared every day of every year with him for nearly half their lives.

And now he’s gone.

It feels like he’s died most days, except that Jensen’s out there, being beautiful and the most incredible person Jared has ever known still, probably dating and kissing and loving other people, other men who don’t know him, who will never know him like Jared does.

No one will ever know Jensen like Jared does. It’s just not possible. No one could ever love him as thoroughly and without pause, and they never will.

There’s a knock on the door.

Jared blinks, pulled out of his mind slowly. He realizes then he doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here, only knows that the movie has restarted again and is very nearly at the same part it was when he’d turned it on in the first place.

Another knock.

He jumps up, wavering unsteadily, reaching over to flick the lamp on, flooding the room with a light that is almost startlingly bright. 

The walk to the door feels like an eternity, his chest like there’s a vice around him, squeezing slowly with each passing second until he can barely breathe by the time he gets his fingers on the doorknob.

Jensen is there like magic, like a mirage, dressed to the letter of his earlier description, looking exactly the way Jared pictured except infinitely more stunning, more vibrant and supple and heartbroken and _real_. Jared can barely stand, has to clutch at the doorframe to keep his footing.

“What are you doing?” he whispers, the tears that had finally dried coming back when he sees them in Jensen’s, the warm green of them shining wet now. Jensen has nothing in his hands, his posture soft and exhausted, his eyes searching Jared’s in a way they haven’t in months and months, connecting them in a way that’s been missing for so long, too long.

“I’m coming home.”


End file.
